Senior Free Democratic Party politician and Bundestag Vice President Wolfgang Kubicki has stepped out in defence of his coalition ally Scholz, insisting that the chancellor is not a sausage.
“Olaf Scholz is not a wurst, he is the chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany”, Kubicki said, speaking to the German press agency dpa. “This must be respected”, the politician stressed.
Fellow Free Democratic Party lawmaker Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann said Melnyk should apologise to Steinmeier and “politely invite the chancellor to visit” to end the diplomatic spat.
Opposition Die Linke ("The Left") MP Sevim Dagdelen went further, tweeting that “anyone who doesn’t expel this supporter of Nazism Melnyk has lost all self-respect”, adding the hashtags #OffendedLiverwurst, #Bandera, and #Azov. The Ukrainian ambassador has made no secret of his esteem for Stepan Bandera, a Ukrainian WWII-era Nazi collaborator, and demonstrably laid flowers at his tomb in Munich in 2015.
Alternative for Germany party leader Tino Chrupalla told dpa that the German Foreign Ministry should summon Melnyk over his remarks. “It’s impossible to tolerate such provocations and insults…without taking any actions. The German government must immediately summon Ambassador Melnyk”, Chrupalla said. The opposition politician similarly suggested that if the envoy cannot be made to understand the German position, Berlin should demand that he be recalled.
Christian Democratic Union deputy chair Johann Wadephul also criticised Melnyk, saying his “tone” was “inappropriate”, and that even in the current emergency situation, “diplomatic representatives should behave appropriately toward government officials”. The senior CDU politician suggested that the ambassador’s remarks “don’t generate support” and “don’t help the common cause”.
Sausagegate
Melnyk sparked a scandal on Tuesday by attacking Scholz over his refusal to travel to Kiev and saying that “playing an offended liverwurst sausage doesn’t sound very statesmanlike”. On Monday, Scholz said Kiev’s decision not to allow President Steinmeier to visit Ukraine in mid-April was “standing in the way” of his own trip. Kiev’s snub was unacceptable, Scholz stressed, given the immense military and financial support Berlin has provided Kiev in recent months.
Steinmeier told reporters last month that he had cancelled a planned trip to Kiev during a whirlwind visit to the region after being informed that he was “not wanted” in the country over his supposed “close ties to Russia”. Melnyk suggested that the president had created “a spider’s web of contacts with Russia for decades”. Steimneier’s Social Democratic Party ally and former Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel blasted the ambassador over the allegations, saying Berlin “should not accept” “untruthful and malicious” “conspiracy theories about our country's politics and the people in charge”.
Melnyk is well-known in Germany for his unconventional approach to diplomacy. Last year, he warned that Kiev might develop nuclear weapons if it wasn’t allowed to join NATO. In January, he tried to pull a guilt trip on Berlin, saying Germany was obliged to send weapons to Kiev due to the country’s “eternal historical responsibility to Ukraine for Nazi tyranny”.
Earlier this year, German media reported that government officials went out of their way to avoid speaking to Melnyk, considering him a “pain in the a**” to deal with.